What’s next for workforce education at the federal level is anybody’s guess. As the Trump administration settles in amid a Republican-controlled Washington, big questions loom about the fate of industrial policy spending, possible legislation on AI and jobs, MAGA’s take on automation and unions, the primary federal workforce system, and whether apprenticeship could finally take off.
To get a sense of what to watch over the next few months, we spoke with John Pallasch, a consultant who served as assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor during the first Trump administration.
Pallasch stresses that he doesn’t speak for the Labor Department or for the Trump administration: “These answers simply reflect my experience having run Kentucky’s state workforce agency under Governor Matt Bevin and the Employment and Training Administration at the Labor Department in the first Trump administration.”
In addition to describing what he’d like to see at the federal level, Pallasch talked about how state policymakers can draw from recent debates in Washington to move now on workforce development and economic mobility.
Pallasch also shares his take on apprenticeships, including a call for a fundamental reframing of what they are. See below for a lightly edited transcript of the discussion.
Q: Will Republican-led Washington back more nondegree workforce training?
A: I hope they do. I hope they lean into this. I hope they realize that it’s really about opportunity. Do folks in cities across America even have the opportunity? How do we help the working-class folks that this administration purports to want to represent now? As the Trump Republican Party, how do we help them when they don’t have the means or the resources or the time to go to college? How does the administration create those alternate pathways? One of them is apprenticeships, but there are all kinds of other ways. So I hope they do lean into it. I hope they do not shut down the Department of Education, which is a lot more complicated than you think. Rather, how do we look at CTE? How do we look at adult education? How do we really create those pathways for folks to get into the workforce rather than getting a traditional four-year degree?
There’s a lot of talk around it. I don’t know how exciting it is once you’re in office because it’s very painstaking and plodding to get through that. We don’t have to steer people away from degrees. But how do we create other pathways that are much more equitable, if we want to use that popular term? How do we create pathways that are more accessible to individuals? I don’t know who’s going to lead the charge, but I hope somebody does. Because it fits with the ethos now of representing the working class and the frontline workers. That’s how you engage them. That’s how you get them to not be frontline workers, but to move up into middle management and upper-level positions, by creating that pathway that doesn’t require degrees.
Q: What happens next with WIOA reauthorization?
A: It was no secret that Chair [Virginia] Foxx was driving this. She’s obviously not chair anymore. I think the next administration will revisit this. I very much hope that the Department of Labor positions itself to begin providing briefings to the Hill. They can provide briefings about the state of affairs, what is being done, what could be done. Workforce should be one of the core functions of the department. I wish everybody focused more on this. I don’t know who’s going to be the champion. But it shouldn’t prevent anybody at the state, local, even federal and congressional level from looking at the current bill, seeing what can be done, picking and choosing from that bill, the provisions that they liked or didn’t like, and then going about and seeing if they could do something with it.
Q: Are any states doing that now?
A: As I always do, I would point to Alabama. Pick and choose the provisions that you think are good, like the 50% training requirement, and just put those into state law or state policy now. And then when the bill passes, you’re already ahead of the game. There are things governors can do now. They often lack the political will to do it. They want Congress and the Department of Labor to tell them they have to do something they know they should be doing anyways. It’s just politically easier. They can redesignate areas right now. They can hold the local board’s feet to the fire. But they don’t want to do it because of local elected officials or party leaders or fundraisers or whoever. It’s all that small-p politics where I don’t want to kick John out of his local workforce board.
Arkansas also is moving somewhat in this direction, more on the technology and data piece. There wasn’t a whole lot in the bill about technology. If I had the pen, I would’ve put a lot more in there about technology and data sharing. And I think Arkansas is at the forefront of what’s happening there. Robert McGough, he’s really got a good playbook that he’s running. Indiana and Colorado are moving in the right direction, which is interesting because they are politically different states. But they both understand the challenges and want some type of innovation, some type of progress. Florida is doing quite a bit. They’ve got some pretty big swings that they’re going to take, one of which is on the data and technology side, where they’re going to really try to wrangle all of these systems and wrangle all the data.
Q: How optimistic are you about apprenticeship in this country?
A: There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what an apprenticeship is, honestly, at its base level. I don’t know what percentage of employers realize this is an employee that you hire and pay on Day One, yet they’re doing outside training and they’re doing classroom training. So the first argument needs to be, you’re hiring these people anyways. You need frontline people to do whatever. It’s code the computer, drive the forklift, distribute the medicine. Wouldn’t it be better to hire them with a little bit of help from the government—with a better path forward for you and them?
Let’s ask employers, how much do you spend on recruitment and retention? Because you hire somebody and they’re gone in six months. They’re less likely to leave if they know, “I’m starting here and this job kind of sucks, but if I stick through it, in two years, I’m moving up three rungs on the ladder. Okay, that’s something I want to do. Now I’m going to be more committed.” At times we forget that. We think, “Oh well, an apprenticeship is two years long, so I don’t have an employee for two years. I don’t know what I need in two years.” No. You’re getting the employee today. What’s your vacancy today? What’s the frontline or second-level employee that you need today? Let’s hire them. But then let’s give them a better path, a better career ladder, use some more certainty. As simple as it sounds, it breaks down right there. Employers think of it as some sort of limbo-land as opposed to subsidized career-path job training.
Q: Do you see more companies realizing that if you spend money on apprentices, it’s good for the bottom line?
A: I’m not trying to attack you, but you said something there: “spend money on apprentices.” That’s right—the money you’re spending on your employees. Not even that. It’s so small. You have to pay them to do—it’s not a requirement—but around a couple hundred hours of classroom training. OK, that’s 10% of their salary. That’s not a significant fee. And by the way, when they’re going through that, they’re becoming better employees. So it’s not like they’re going to knitting class. Yes, you have to pay your mentors to oversee them, but I would hope you have a culture where senior folks are helping junior folks anyway. So that’s not really a cost.
Your two major expenses are related technical instruction when they’re doing the classroom training and the senior person overseeing them. That’s money you can absolutely recoup from the feds or from the states. So it’s really not much money out of your pocket, if any. And you’re getting a better employee who’s improving themselves, who’s sticking around longer, who’s better at their job. I mean, it really is a win-win.
Q: Could we see more government funding for apprenticeships?
A: There’s been a lot of state money set aside for apprenticeships, both direct money, tax credits, scholarships, all different forms of money. There’s been a really concerted effort, far dwarfing any of the money coming out of the Employment and Training Administration. I mean, the Office of Apprenticeship is about $300M, which is nothing. But the states have really been leaning into it. They’re still struggling. What I’m seeing is, yes, you have a program, but you have four apprentices enrolled or 12 apprentices enrolled. You don’t have the 15K your state needs going forward. So it’s progress. It’s not perfection. But I would take a look at some of the state incentives around apprenticeships, because obviously with the new administration, I think there’s going to be some revisiting of Industry-Recognized Apprenticeships.
Q: What do you think about the role of intermediaries in the apprenticeship space?
A: We should absolutely invest in intermediaries. And those intermediaries should be community colleges, workforce boards, chambers of commerce, great associations. They should be existing partners. But adding another partner who’s going to take a cut of the funding isn’t going to help an already constipated system. If I can’t get my education cabinet and my workforce cabinet to work together, I don’t know how introducing a third party is going to help that. Could DoL fund existing workforce partners who then have the responsibility to kind of train the trainer and keep that going? I don’t like the idea of introducing third parties who aren’t doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They’re doing this to get paid. And I don’t begrudge them for that. If they can’t convince the employers to pay them, if they can’t convince the apprentices to pay them, why should DoL pay them?
Q: Are you sold on the promise of the apprenticeship degree?
A: In theory, I agree with the model. I don’t think it’s this panacea that’s going to solve everything because it still somehow creates or furthers this message that without the degree you are nothing. But if I can back into a degree, sure. Put another feather in my cap as I move forward. I do like the flipping of the paradigm of the work creates the degree rather than the degree creating the work. It’s a good messaging piece. It will work for some—it’s going to work for teachers because of the licensure issue and how long it’s going to take. But why do we license for this occupation and not that occupation? And do we need all these licenses?